Media arts can advance the antiquated factory educational model (mechanistic, linear, regimented, top-down, content and testing-centered, and culturally biased), into a 21st century model (cognitive network and ecosystem, non-linear, adaptable, student centered and directed, flexible and equitable).
Media arts is an emergent K-12 arts content area, now initiated through standards in 39 states, consisting of the familiar communications forms of photo, film, video, animation, sound, graphics etc. Its less familiar forms extend into interactive and 3D design, as well as AI, virtual, augmented and mixed reality (XR). These forms are creatively unlimited in capacity, so that students are able to produce and simulate any product or experience imaginable. This affords students the capacity to learn anything possible and gain comprehensive competencies in enriched, real-world contexts.
Imagine a media arts laboratory where students are designing their ideal future city. Using 3D design software and 3D printing for actual scale models, they tackle urban renewal and design, sustainability principles, and the real-world application of mathematics, engineering and construction concepts.
In an augmented reality (AR) project, student groups design an interactive historical scavenger hunt for their neighborhood. Layered over their real-world environment, they mark significant points of interest and community resources, along with linked information, socially relevant murals and sculptures, and local stories and interviews.
In an international collaboration, two media arts classes collaborate on a live broadcast showcasing various arts and academic presentations and interactions. Each class displays their local culture and academic curriculum through their chosen media and arts forms, with accompanying social media feeds, and communications exchanges.
Media arts students design a video game based on a popular sci-fi novel, integrating complex physics simulations and lively, science-based narratives. The project also integrates advanced mathematics, English in project narratives, texts, and scripts, and engineering through game mechanics.
Students produce a transmedia mental health campaign. They support students to produce, share and interact in socially beneficial and empowering ways. Students produce diverse events, broadcasts, and interactions for varied outputs and audiences. They apply statistical analysis to measure their impacts on the school and community. All students gain critical media literacies for analyzing and verifying multimedia information, and collaboratively nurturing a civil digital society.
Media arts' versatile, multimodal (multi-sensory, multimedia) tools support students to interact creatively with the educational curriculum and to apply it to real world experiences. For example, they can create interactive, 3D animated models that demonstrate science concepts, such as cell division, the digestive system, or weather systems. Students are then able to manipulate, construct, and play with these multimedia models until they fully and tangibly understand those concepts, and then transfer them to varied applications and situations. This becomes a holistic process of learning that is deep and resilient, and more engaging, rewarding and relevant. MAE's capacity to multimodally ‘plasticize and animate’ the curriculum extends across all contents, concepts and applications.
Through media arts' diverse productions, the core curriculum comes alive for students, who can begin to have a leading, active role in the creative inquiry process. These adaptable projects can be scaled and tailored to students’ personal interests, learning levels and pathways. As a result, assessment becomes more diversified, flexible, and authentic, where more students can demonstrate and achieve academic success in many more ways. This advances equity and inclusion for all students, including those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, English learners, and those with special education challenges. This liberates all students to the boundless possibilities of their own learning capacities, with implications for systemic educational improvements and transformation. Ultimately, the system gains the attributes of a cognitive network and augmented learning ecosystem.
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